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March 2019

Today is my 47th birthday. I wasn't going to blog about it. In fact, I was pretty much going to ignore it altogether. At this point, I find myself wanting to approach it as a day like any other day.

But today I am officially one year older, and perhaps that is worth at least a pause and a moment's reflection.

I have told my wife and kids that I hope I live a long life. I'd like to grow old with my wife; that is strangely exciting to me. And I'd love to see what my kids will make of their lives. But the truth is, if I died tomorrow I'd die well content with the life I've lived. It is important to me that they know that.There is nothing that quantity of life can add that quality of life has not already given.

The truth is, when I look back on my years so far...and I am being completely honest about this...I feel fortunate beyond my wildest dreams. I don't know why, am completely humbled by it, and sometimes even feel guilty about it...but it seems like my life has been (and continues to be) full of good people and good things to an extent that goes far beyond anything I have ever had any right to expect.

It’s not that there haven’t been some very painful times.Believe, there have been—so much so that at points I wasn’t sure I’d make it through.But even then people stuck by me and loved me and called forth the best from me when it would have been far easier to turn away.

And it’s not that my life is perfect.Far from it.I’m not yet the person I want to be.In recent years I’ve come to my birthday and thought “Materially, I really do have everything I want to have”.But this year for some reason I can think of lots of things I want, and I struggle with that.

But it’s just that despite the bumps and pitfalls; the mistakes and the shortcomings; the longing sometimes to have it all—or even just more than I really need-- that is unrealistic and unhealthy and even destructive…Despite all these things, I look back at my life and simply find myself overwhelmingly…

Thankful.

Thanks to God and all those who have helped make my life be what it never could’ve been without them.I am deeply grateful.

Recently some bloggers helped me out with the start of a sermon. The material they sent was fantastic, and because of it I think the sermon turned out pretty well. You can find it at: http://www.stmatthewssterling.org/Home.aspx . It's one the left, entitled Are You Who You Want to Be? (And yes, we did end with the Switchfoot song of the same name).

While you are there you might also enjoy a brief BBC interview on one of our services. You gotta love the British humor with which it was introduced.

Finally, thanks to all those who made suggestions several weeks ago about how we might best respond to Katrina's devestation. Your suggestions were helpful, and as the weeks have gone by we've come up with what we feel is a pretty effective plan.

Initially we sent money. We are not a particularly big church--about 300 people or so on a usual Sunday. So I was very proud of our congregation that they gave almost $10,000.

Now we have helped relocate 2 families, providing housing and transportation and given one a job. We are in contact with a third to see what we can do there.

Starting next week, we'll be sending down teams to the Gulf. I'll be on that first team, leaving immediately after services on Sunday (October 9) and returning Saturday the 16th. A couple of trips we are really looking forward to is going down over Thanksgiving and perhaps even Christmas.

We've also been given a partner church, St. Patrick's in Long Beach, Mississippi that was completely obliterated. This way we know our help and our money goes directly to local families where it is needed.

This is Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods, Neverwhere, Stardust, and most recently The Anansi Boys. And that's my oldest daughter standing next to him.

We saw him do a reading at the National Book Festival yesterday on the National Mall in DC. My daughter wanted to get a couple books signed then, but his lines were apparently really, really long.

We also saw John Irving. Neil Gaiman blew my daughter away, and I can understand why. But it was Irving who really wowed me. What both of us agreed on was how very cool it was to be so close to a couple of the best authors in the world, and to hear them share about their life, their ideas, and their craft.

I was thinking a little bit more about our Hershey Amusement Park trip and The Old People's photo below. At the end of the day we were all gathered around a table near the front of the park snacking on a funnel cake.

In the background was some old music by groups like The Lovin Spoonful, Tommy James and Shondells, the Monkees. Now though I am a metal head pretty much to the core (my all time favorite album just might be Black Sabbath's Paranoid), I have a confession to make: I actually really like music by the bands above.

So, when the park radio played The Turtles (what a great name!) song Happy Together, we all found ourselves singing it together:

I can't see me lovin' nobody but youFor all my lifeWhen you're with me, baby the skies'll be blueFor all my life

It was a great moment; one of those that just sneaks up on you in a surprising way that is so powerful despite its ordinariness. We may be getting old (wink wink), but we sure still know how to have fun.

On a completely different note, after a summer of trial and experimentation, if you want my Top Secret Recipe for the perfect milkshake, you can find it at:

Someone once said that to be a gardener you also have to be a masochist.That is a sentiment I’ve understood pretty well this year.Between fighting bugs, disease, and drought, gardening has seemed like a struggle, a resolute act of the will.

And yet… when I go out and cut flowers or harvest fruits and vegetables or simply drink the beauty in…Well, then I feel like one of the most fortunate people on earth.

This morning is a good example.I picked peppers, which I’ll dry and then grind into pure, fresh chili powder.When it gets nice and cold, my youngest daughter and I will make chili from a recipe she learned at school.

As a family, we'll sit down at the table together (some of the chili will be made without meat for my wife who is a vegetarian), delighting in its robust flavor, and thinking “life sure is good.”

Glad everybody enjoyed the pictures of the monarch hatching. Here's one more of him just before he flew away.

Today we're off to Hershey Park with about 70 other people from church. We're taking a bus up together which in itself should be a lot of fun.

It'll be about 2AM Sunday morning when we get back, which will probably make tomorrow a long day. Still, it won't be as bad as when Linda and I went to see a U-2 concert on a Saturday night and didn't get back until about 10 minutes before the 8 o' clock service.

Hopefully today will be a little cooler, though Ophelia's inundated the area in warm tropical air. I just wish she'd brought more rain. Man, do we need it.

I walked out into the garden early this morning to find this. I had planned on posting this picture with the caption "Looks like today is going to be the day!", and then figured I'd update later in the day when the chrysalis hatched.

I walked away to photograph some other stuff--the mist out on the field behind our house, a drop of dew on a gourd, some flowers, a monarch egg (which turned out pretty well) and then decided I'd head back to the chrysalis to take some more shots and see if I could get some with better focus.

When I went back over, the picture to the right is what I found. Look how fat his abdomen is; it's full of fluid that, with the help of gravity, will be pumped into his rapidly expanding wings.

Here is another view that gives a good sense of its wings unfolding.

In the final picture, you can see the wings are fully expanded What a great way to start the day!